Sapphire > Quotes

“Depression is anger turned inward.”
― Sapphire, Push

“Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a'climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now -
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
- Langston Hughes (112)”
― Sapphire, Push

“Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow." - The Talmud”
― Sapphire, Push

“… but you cant get all hung up on details when you are trying to survive…”
― Sapphire

“Listen baby, Muver love you. Muver not dumb. Listen baby: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.

Thas the alphabet. Twenty- six letters in all. Them letters make up words. Them words everything.”
― Sapphire, Push

“I'm alive inside. A bird is my heart. Mama and Daddy is not win. I'm winning. I'm drinking hot chocolate in the Village wif girls--all kind who love me. How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy kknow me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. Must be what they already had in they pocket. ”
― Sapphire

“I say I drownin' in river. She don't look me like I'm crazy but say, If you just sit there the river gonna rise up drown you! Writing could be the boat carry you to the other side. (97)”
― Sapphire, Push

“How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy know me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. (131)”
― Sapphire, Push

“I don't understand why some kids git a good school and mother and father and some don't. But Rita say forgit the WHY ME shit and git on to what's next.”
― Sapphire

“Everything ends; there is no endless anything, except in dreams.”
― Sapphire, The Kid

“Is life a hammer to beat me down?”
― Sapphire, Push

“How is something a memory if you never forgit?”
― Sapphire, Push

“Sure you can do anything when talking or writing, it's not like living when you can only do what you doing.”
― Sapphire "Push"

“Some folks got a light around them that shine for other peoples. I think that maybe some of them was in tunnels, and in that tunnel, maybe the only light they had was inside of them. And then, even long after they escaped that tunnel... They still be shining for everybody else.”
― Sapphire, Push

“I know you are, but you gotta push”
― Sapphire

“I’m curious to see, now that beauty is gone, what will be reflected in a mans eyes.”
― Sapphire, Black Wings and Blind Angels

“I bite my fingernails till they look like disease, pull strips of my skin away. Get Daddy's razor out cabinet. Cut cut cut arm wrist, not trying to die, trying to plug myself back in. (111)”
― Sapphire, Push

“Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers: "Grow, Grow".”
― Sapphire, Push

“Last week we went to the museum. A whole whale is hanging from the ceiling. Bigger than big! OK, have you seen a Volkswagon car that's like a bug? Um huh, you know what I'm talking about. That's how big the heart of a blue whale is. I know it's not possible, but if that heart was in me, could I love more?...I would like to.”
― Sapphire

“I feel like my blood a giant river swell up inside me and I'm drowning. My head all dark inside. Feel like giant river I never cross in front me now. Ms Rain say, You not writing Precious. I say I drownin' in river. She don't look me like I'm crazy but say, If you just sit there the river gonna rise up drown you! Writing could be the boat to carry you to the other side.”
― Sapphire, Push

“I wanna say I am somebody. I wanna say it on subway, TV, movie, LOUD. I see the pink faces in suits look over top of my head. I watch myself disappear in their eyes, their tesses. I talk loud but still I don't exist.”
― Sapphire, Push

“A girl takes my tongue, signs her name
& asks me how do I like it?”
― Sapphire, Black Wings and Blind Angels

“I changed the past by walking back into it.”
― Sapphire

“Can the light dying behind my eyes be
recorded in rhyme schemes?
I meet this page in the morning beating back death
trying to re-member.”
― Sapphire, Black Wings and Blind Angels

“One thing I say about Farrakhan and Alice Walker they help me like being black. I wish I wasn't fat but I am. Maybe one day I like that too, who knows.”
― Sapphire, Push

“I know I’m stupid
I know I’m worthless
but I coulda been a star-
a stupid worthless star.
What I can't
be
I kill.”
― Sapphire, Black Wings and Blind Angels

“I, how to describe a feeling so deep it's like a river? How can a river be wrong?”
― Sapphire, Push

“How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy know me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me.”
― Sapphire, Push

“I'm ashamed, this is my mama. No matter how fly my braids is, how I grease my skin, scalp, no matter how many jew'ries, this is my mother. -Said by Precious Jones in Push”
― Sapphire

“Almost all instruction seems to revolve around language ac-(Jermaine spelling now) "q, a-kwi-si-tion acquisition!" ("What that?" I ask. "You know, to get. Language acquisition, to get some language.")”
― Sapphire, Push